Thumbs up to Cheerios!

The vice president of marketing for Cheerios released a statement defending the ad after the backlash.

'Consumers have responded positively to our new Cheerios ad. At Cheerios, we know there are many kinds of families and we celebrate them all,' Camille Gibson said in the statement.
Source: MailOnline/DailyMail

Cheerios Ad

This Is The Mixed-Race Cheerios Ad All The Idiots Are Complaining About

A new commercial for Cheerios featuring a mixed-race family has become a target for idiots on the internet.

The anodyne spot features a Caucasian mother, an African-American father and their biracial daughter, but contains no overt messaging, politically correct or otherwise (except that Cheerios are good for you).

Nonetheless, Adweek noted the spot had been propelled onto the front page of Reddit, where it received a plethora of racists remarks. Concreteloop.com noted a YouTube commentator who allegedly called the spot an "abomination."

Comments under the video have since been disabled — a sure sign they were overwhelmingly negative.

It's 2013, but apparently some parts of America are still not ready to see miscegenation when it comes to cereal.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=kYofm5d5Xdw

Source: Business Insider/Judith Grey



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/multi-racial-cheerios-ad-2013-5#ixzz2UsJzRBKh

Race and Writers

White Writer, Black Characters: Bad Idea?

Emma Stone, Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer, Alison Janney and Kathryn Stockett from the movie The Help (AFP/Getty Images)

"I'm a well-known writer of women's fiction. I want to incorporate black characters into my books. How does a white woman write black women correctly? For example, is it disrespectful to have a black woman have a bit of a thing for white men? What's the best way to introduce a black female character in a book? Do I write something like, 'Despite being African American, Carissa found blond men attractive'? Or something like, 'Right or wrong, Carissa loved white boys and had picked one out to take home with her'?

"There's a sad dearth of people of color in romantic fiction. I doubt it's racism. I think it's mainly because so many white writers, like me, simply don't know how to get it right, so we stay in our comfort zone. Any advice?" --Too White to Write?

If, by saying you want to write black women "correctly," you mean "in a way that's guaranteed not to inspire any complaints, constructive critiques or outright criticism," you should probably just stick to your genre's safely monochromatic cast of characters.

After all, views on depictions of black women in media are as diverse as their audiences. We aren't all alike, and our assessments of whether your book should be awarded a Nobel Prize or used for kindling won't be, either.

Of course, you're right to anticipate heightened sensitivity surrounding the characters you're contemplating, and that's with good reason. Quick background reading assignment: Iconic: Decoding Images of the Revolutionary Black Woman. In it, author Lakesia Johnson chronicles how figures from Sojourner Truth to Gabby Douglas have had to counteract media-fueled negative stereotypes thrust upon them (angry, emasculating, Mammy and sex object, to name a few).

You're probably familiar with those tropes, and with reactions to works like Kathryn Stockett's The Help, the novel-turned-blockbuster film about African-American maids working in Mississippi in the 1960s.

"Despite efforts to market the book and the film as a progressive story of triumph over racial injustice, The Help distorts, ignores and trivializes the experiences of black domestic workers," the Association of Black Women Historians said in a scathing statement in response to the film, adding that it "makes light of black women's fears and vulnerabilities turning them into moments of comic relief."

To be fair, black writers don't get a pass here, either. The ABC series Scandal, brought to us by Shonda Rhimes (and currently causing between-seasons withdrawal symptoms among plenty of African-American viewers), has been accused of "send[ing] the message through its high-powered protagonist that black women don't deserve loving and healthy relationships," and "continuing perpetuation of the stereotype of a black woman whose libido and sexual urges are so pronounced that even with an education and a great job, and all these other things, she can't control herself."

And there's not even room to get into all the ubiquitous teardowns of the work of Tyler Perry. As the Washington Post's Vanessa Williams put it very diplomatically, his "films are often criticized for their cartoonish depiction of African-American life and, especially, his depiction of black women as either abused, struggling beings who are rescued by good men or ambitious shrews who are brought low by bad men." Plenty of others take it a step further and call his portrayals flat-out "dangerous."

Clearly, there's no box to check and no source of permission that will guarantee your work doesn't offend a single reader. But does that mean you should abandon your interest in making black women your protagonists and even -- gasp -- protagonists who are attracted to white men? (I can assure you, that's probably not as controversial as you think it is, Scandal being one example.)

No way, says Marita Golden, author of a dozen works of fiction and nonfiction, including Skin Deep: Black Women and White Women Write About Race. "White people, because of the emotional legacy as well as the historical and political legacy of racism, often feel that they do not have access to the black soul and the black spirit," she told me, "but I think writers have the right to write about anything." In fact, she said, "I really feel that white people should write about black characters."

But the key is that "comfort zone" you mention. You have to get there well before you put pen to paper.

The best way for you to do that, said Golden, is to "stop saying to yourself, 'I'm writing about a black woman.' Just write about a woman."

Easier said than done, surely. That's the reason "write what you know" is a literary cliché. And also the reason that Girls creator Lena Dunham decided to skip including women of color in her show altogether (she stopped short of renaming the show White Girls as some have recommended), telling NPR in 2012 that "there has to be specificity to that experience [that] I wasn't able to speak to."

So here's a start. Develop relationships that will allow you to become confident that can begin to speak to that experience, because you know African-American women as individuals. "Usually, white people who write meaningful books with black characters, they do have black people in their lives who they know deeply and respect," said Golden. To be clear, that's "as friends, not as research. Serious, meaningful, complete friendships with black people."

This is your first step toward allowing your new characters to emerge more naturally. Not as science projects, in which you're cautiously throwing in different ingredients and trying to predict the public reaction. And not through some sort of literary quota system. But by keeping their individual dilemmas, not demographics, in the front of your mind as their stories evolve. By seeing them as humans as complex as your real-life friends.

"Once you're ready to write a story that doesn't start with labels and stereotypes," Golden said, "don't worry about race, and don't worry about the reception of readers. Just write."

Source: The Root/By: Jenée Desmond-Harris

Source URL: http://www.theroot.com/views/white-writer-black-characters-bad-idea

Crossing the River

We at Project RACE are very pleased to announce the West Coast Premier of "Crossing the River." This is an amazing film--a must see! 

  Dances With Films schedule and ticketing

Dances With Films has released their lineup, schedule and ticketing! Here is the “Crossing the River” page with a link to ticketing.
CTR will screen on Saturday, June 1st in the 2:45 pm shorts block
Chinese Theatre
6801 Hollywood Blvd.
Hollywood, CA 90028

WALMART DID WHAT?!

Another reason to boycott Walmart. This comes a week after they refused to allow multiracial people to mark more than one race on their survey forms. -Susan 

Father in Biracial Relationship Accused of Kidnapping His Own Children

Credit: FOX 5 News

White Father Accused of Stealing His Own Kids

Joseph took his three girls to Walmart recently to cash a check, but he got more than he asked for upon leaving, and we don’t mean he scored extra cash. After Joseph left the store and picked up his wife Keana, the family arrived back at home to find a cop car waiting.

"He asks us very sincerely, ‘Hey, I was sent here by Walmart security. I just need to make sure that the children that you have are your own,’” Joseph told FOC 5 News.


Joseph is white, Keana is black, and their three girls look more like their mom than their dad.


"Well, the customer was concerned because they saw the children with your husband and he didn't think that they fit," Keana said she was told. "And I said, ‘What do you mean by they don't fit?’ And I was trying to get [the officer] to say it. And she says, ‘Well, they just don't match up.’”

The couple has been married for 10 years and has a 4-year-old daughter and 2-year-old twin girls. They say they have experienced their fair share of racial insults before, but this accusation that their kids were stolen by their own father takes the cake.


Walmart issued a statement in which they claim to be looking into the situation, but Joseph and Keana say they’ve already decided never to shop at Walmart again.

Source: Fox 5 News 

Racism on Rise in Europe

Fear of a black Europe: Racism rises on the Old Continent

Analysis: Economic pain is bringing out the worst in some Europeans.

ENLARGE

What do you think?

BRUSSELS, Belgium — The appointment of Italy's first black cabinet minister was a cause for celebration for anti-racism campaigners in Europe.

Their joy was cut short by reactions to Congo-born Cecile Kyenge taking office.

"This is a bonga bonga government," said Mario Borghezio, a member of the European Parliament representing Italy's Northern League party. "It seems to me she'd be a great housekeeper, but not a government minister."

Borghezio's comments were widely condemned within Italy and across Europe.

Yet in the days that followed, more outbreaks of racism illustrated what activists denounce as a trend of growing intolerance fueled by Europe's economic crisis.

Hungary's third-largest political party warned the country was being "subjugated by Zionism" as it protested against the World Jewish Congress holding a meeting in Budapest.

In Athens, authorities clashed violently with a Nazi-influenced party whose electoral support has soared.

Fans shouting racial abuse of black players halted a match between two of Italy's top soccer teams.

"There is definitely an exacerbation of negative perceptions of migrants, and ethnic and religious minorities, with the current economic crisis," said Georgina Siklossy, spokeswoman at the European Network Against Racism, formed by campaign groups from 26 countries.

"It's become common to accuse migrants and ethnic minorities of stealing jobs, benefiting from social services and abusing the welfare state," she said.

Pan-European figures on racism are hard to come by, due to differences in definitions and reporting among national authorities. Support for openly racist or anti-immigration politicians is on the rise in several countries, however, and activists report a rise in hate crime and discrimination.

Greece, the country hardest hit by the euro zone crisis, has emerged with serious racism problems linked to the rise of the Golden Dawn party.

The Nazi-inspired movement saw its support rise from 0.3 percent in 2009 elections to 7 percent last year — winning 21 seats in parliament with the slogan: "So we can rid this land of filth."

Its black-shirted followers are blamed for several of the 154 incidents of racist violence documented last year by Greece's Racist Violence Recording Network, which was set up in 2011 with support from the United Nations' refugee agency.

In the latest high-profile case, a 14-year-old Afghan boy was left with severe facial scaring last week after a beating from a group of men dressed in black, one of whom attacked him with a broken bottle, Greek media reported.

“Democracy in Greece is seriously threatened by the upsurge of hate crime,” Nils Muiznieks, the Council of Europe's commissioner for human rights, said after a study visit to the country early this year.

"Rhetoric stigmatizing migrants is widely used in Greek politics."

Greece is a special case, says Ioannis Dimitrakopoulos, of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, who rejects the idea of a generalized increase of racism across Europe resulting form the economic crisis.

"The economic crisis does feed into a variety of reactions and racism is one of them [but] it's quite localized and depends on specific local conditions," Dimitrakopoulos said from the agency's headquarters in Vienna. "The data we have does not indicate a general movement across Europe."

He points to the lack of a Greek-style backlash against migrants in Spain or Portugal, where the economic crisis has also taken a heavy toll.

In northern Europe, he says, anti-immigration parties have suffered losses in recent Dutch and Danish elections.

Traditionally a country that exported emigrants, Greece attracted an immigrant influx during good economic times in the 1990s and 2000s. Its location on Europe's southeastern flank has also made it an entry point for undocumented migrants and asylum-seekers from Asia, Africa and Middle East heading into the EU.

The sudden arrival of newcomers combined with the economic collapse since 2009 have created a perfect storm for racism to develop in Greece. But there are warnings the prolonged recession is whipping up prejudice against minorities elsewhere.

"In Europe we see rising intolerance; growing support for xenophobic and populist parties; discrimination," Italy's Foreign Minister Emma Bonino warned in speech this month.

"Fear and prejudice are being spread across Europe mainly by nationalistic and demagogic groups, who are exploiting the current malaise and social despair," Bonino told a conference on the state of the European Union.

GlobalPost in-depth: Echoes of Hitler

Data published last year by the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights showed ethnic minorities face a high level of hate crime in countries across Europe.

Eighteen percent of sub-Saharan Africans and a similar number of Roma Gypsies suffered assault, threats or serious harassment, according to the agency's survey carried out in 2008across the 27 EU nations.

Beyond far-right parties like Golden Dawn or Hungary's anti-Semitic Jobbik, anti-racism campaigner Siklossy says more established politicians are increasingly scapegoating migrants and minorities.

She says that ignores the positive contribution migrants make to European economies, particularly in countries where declining birthrates are leading to a growing number of pensioners dependent on a shrinking labor force.

Without new immigrants, the labor force would have contracted between 2000 and 2010 in Britain, Luxembourg and Italy, according to a report last year by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Siklossy cites studies showing migrants in France make a net contribution of $15 billion to state tax revenues and that Germany's Turkish community adds $49 billion a year to the country's economy.

Sourch: Global Post.com http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/europe/130524/european-racism-greece-italy

Racial Profiling Used by Sheriff

Arizona sheriff illegally used racial profiling, judge rules

Sheriff Joe Arpaio's immigration law enforcement violated the Constitution by using racial profiling, a judge rules.

TUCSON — A federal  judge has ruled that the immigration enforcement policies of the man who calls himself "America's toughest sheriff" violated the Constitution by using racial profiling.
For years, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has ordered his deputies to detain people they suspect of residing in the country illegally and to hold them for federal authorities.

The 142-page ruling issued Friday by Judge G. Murray Snow came as part of a lawsuit brought on behalf of Latino plaintiffs who asserted that race was a major factor in initiating immigration enforcement stops.

Snow wrote that the sheriff's practices did in fact rely heavily on race, violating the Constitution's 4th and 14th amendments. The 4th Amendment guards against unreasonable search and seizure; the 14th Amendment was created to cement the rights of U.S. citizens.
Attorney Tim Casey, who represents the Sheriff's Office, said the agency would comply with the judge's order but pursue an appeal.

The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office "is disappointed in the decision reached today," Casey said. "The position was and always has been that race is not used to make law enforcement decisions."
He also suggested that if there were problems, they arose from training deputies received from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a federal agency. "There was some bad training," he said.

ICE officials could not immediately be reached for comment Friday evening.

Maricopa County is home to Arizona's biggest city, Phoenix, and has significant Latino and immigrant populations.

In his ruling, Snow took issue with many of the six-term sheriff's actions. The judge noted that deputies frequented places where day laborers gather. In four day-labor sweeps he cited, none of the 35 people arrested was detained for violation of state or local laws, and all were passengers in vehicles, not drivers.

Snow issued an order immediately and permanently barring the Sheriff's Office from detaining or arresting Latinos or stopping Latinos in vehicles simply because of a suspicion they may be in the country illegally.

Snow noted that at one time the federal Department of Homeland Security — which oversees enforcement of immigration laws — had authorized the Sheriff's Office to use race as a factor in determining who should be detained. However, Homeland Security officials have since retracted that right, an act that formed the basis for most of Snow's decision.

Friday's ruling was cheered by immigrant rights activists.

"Today's decision vindicates the rights of Latinos in Maricopa County who've been terrorized by discriminatory [Sheriff's Office] practices and have had their communities torn apart," Dan Pochoda, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona, said in a statement. "The court recognized that racial profiling within the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office is a pervasive and widespread problem that can only be addressed through substantive, meaningful changes to eradicate this egregious practice and begin rebuilding public trust."
Source: nation@latimes.com/By Michael Mello, Los Angeles Times

Multiracial People Needed

Multiracial People Needed for Study

Lisa Giamo at Simon Fraser University is looking for participants for a study dissertation about multiracial experiences. If you are interested, please go to the link below.

https://cgi.sfu.ca/~sisclab/cgi-bin/v5/rws5.cgi?FORM=MultiracialExperience2

Teen Birth Rate Down

U.S. Teen Birth Rate Plummets: Report

Since 1991, rate has dropped by nearly half, health officials find

By Kathleen Doheny
HealthDay Reporter

Teen birth rates in the United States are dropping sharply, especially among Hispanic teens, according to a new government report.

Overall, the rate of birth among teens aged 15 to 19 dropped by nearly one half from 1991 to 2011 -- from about 62 births for every 1,000 teens to 31 births for every 1,000.

From 2007 to 2011, the most recent time period studied, rates fell 25 percent, from 41.5 to about 31.

During that time, rates fell at least 30 percent in seven states, and Arizona and Utah each saw a 35 percent drop, said Brady Hamilton, a statistician at the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics and a co-author of the report, which was released Thursday.

All but two states -- North Dakota and West Virginia -- reported drops of at least 15 percent, the researchers found. They tracked live births, not pregnancies.

"It's good news," Hamilton said. "But it shows there is still much that needs to be examined and done."

When Hamilton's team looked at birth rates by ethnicity, the decline was steepest for Hispanics, with drops averaging 34 percent overall during the 2007 to 2011 period. In the past, Hispanic teens had a higher birth rate: In 2007, for instance, their rate was 21 percent higher than that of black teens. By 2011, the rate for Hispanic teens was just 4 percent higher.

In the most recent period studied, birth rates for black teens declined 24 percent, while white teens showed a 20 percent drop.

"There are still areas where teen births are high and that needs to be examined in greater detail," Hamilton said. State policymakers, for instance, could use the information to address changes to their education programs.

The largest declines typically were found in the Southeast, Mountain and Pacific states, as well as the upper Midwest.

The study did not get into the reasons for the decline. However, experts attribute the declines to strong teen-pregnancy-prevention messages, increased use of birth control with the first sexual experience and the use of dual contraceptive methods, such as condoms plus the pill.

The report is a reason to cheer but not to think the problem is solved, said one expert not involved in the study. The new finding "underscores the remarkable progress this nation has made," said Bill Albert, chief program officer of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C.

As good as the progress is, Albert said, it's important to realize that "our rates are still higher than in other countries."

For instance, the teen birth rate in Japan is 4.9 per 1,000, according to United Nations data from 2009 to 2010. In the Netherlands, it's 5.3 -- about six times lower than in the United States.

Albert believes many factors explain the decline in teen birth rates. "These rates have been driven down by the magic combination of less sex and more contraception," Albert said. More teens are delaying sex, he said, persuaded by sex education or parents, and more are using birth control.

Source: Healthday

The peer effect plays a role, he said. When teens hear that their friends are delaying sex or using birth control, it influences them.

Then there is the "MTV effect." Programs that depict teen moms show the difficulties of pregnancy and parenthood, Albert said.

"They really do show the challenges of early pregnancy and parenthood," he said. His organization has commissioned surveys to ask teens what they think of these shows. "The overwhelming majority say these shows are sobering, not salacious," he said.

Efforts to reduce teen births must continue, Albert said, or rates will surely go up again.

Source: HealthDay

Tiger Woods Feuding

Tiger and Sergio feud turns ugly with ‘fried chicken’ remark

Sergio Garcia’s shocking words about Tiger Woods.

By NICK SCHWARTZ 

Richard Heathcote/Getty Images

The ongoing feud between Tiger Woods and Sergio Garcia, which started during the third roundof The Players Championship, has taken an ugly twist. On Monday, Garcia told reporters in England that Woods hasn’t been honest in 15 years. Garcia was on stage at the European Tour awards dinner Tuesday, where he was asked by Steve Sands of the Golf Channel, in jest, if he would be inviting Woods over for dinner during the U.S. Open. Garcia’s reply was shocking.

Via The Guardian:

“We will have him round every night. We will serve fried chicken.”

Garcia later apologized in a statement released by the European Tour, saying that he did not mean the remark to be racist.

“I apologise for any offence that may have been caused by my comment on stage during The European Tour Players’ Awards dinner. I answered a question that was clearly made towards me as a joke with a silly remark, but in no way was the comment meant in a racist manner.”

This isn’t the first time a fellow golfer has made such a remark. In 1997, Fuzzy Zoeller referenced fried chicken as a potential meal Woods may choose to serve at the Masters Champions’ dinner, after he won his first green jacket.

Source: USAToday Sports

Multiracial Caymanians

Multiracial Caymanian

Multiracial Caymanians

Total population
Approx. 21,494
Regions with significant populations
Cayman Islands (Approx. 21,494[1])
Languages
English
Religion
Christianity
Related ethnic groups
Afro-Caymanian, White Caymanian

Multiracial Caymanians or Mixed-race Caymanians are Caymanians who have ancestry from two or more races.
As of 2013, Caymanian people who are mixed-race are the plurality ethnic group in the Cayman Islands, accounting for 40% of the country's population. The vast majority of multiracial Caymanians are of mixed black African and white European ancestry.
Source: Wikipedia

Obama to Black Graduates

Obama to black graduates: Don’t use racism 

as an excuse

By Dave Boyer

-

The Washington Times

Sunday, May 19, 2013

Speaking at an historically black college, President Obama said Sunday he sometimes blamed his youthful failings on racism and urged the all-male class of graduates to look up to black male role models such a filmmaker Spike Lee.

Protected by a canopy in a steady rain at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Mr. Obama told the drenched graduates and their families that they can't afford to use "the bitter legacy of slavery and segregation" as an excuse for any shortcomings.

"We know that too many young men in our community continue to make bad choices," Mr. Obama said. "Growing up, I made a few myself.  Sometimes I wrote off my own failings as just another example of the world trying to keep a black man down."

Various biographical accounts of Mr. Obama's teenage years in Hawaii have described him as an underachieving student who enjoyed smoking marijuana frequently.

The president said without some opportunities, his life might have turned out differently.

"I might have been in prison," Mr. Obama said. "I might have been unemployed.  I might not have been able to support a family. And that motivates me."

But Mr. Obama said black men today -- he even used the term "brother" frequently -- cannot use racism as a crutch to explain away any failures.

"We’ve got no time for excuses," Mr. Obama said. "Not because the bitter legacy of slavery and segregation have vanished entirely; they have not. Not because racism and discrimination no longer exist; we know those are still out there. It’s just that in today’s hyper-connected, hyper-competitive world, with millions of young people from China and India and Brazil — many of whom started with a whole lot less than all of you did — all of them entering the global workforce alongside you, nobody is going to give you anything that you have not earned."

The president's speech to the all-male class at Morehouse was unusual in the level of his introspection on race, and his bluntness on the responsibilities of black men.

He urged the graduates to help the powerless in society. And even though he said his job as president is to help Americans of all races, he added, "there are some things, as black men, we can only do for ourselves."

"Be a good role model and set a good example for that young brother coming up," Mr. Obama said. "If you know somebody who’s not on point, go back and bring that brother along -- those who’ve been left behind, who haven’t had the same opportunities we have -- they need to hear from you. We’ve got to teach them just like what we have to learn, what it means to be a man -- to serve your city like Maynard Jackson; to shape the culture like Spike Lee."

It was Mr. Obama's second commencement speech of this graduation season. He spoke to the graduates of Ohio State University two weeks ago, and will address the graduating class at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis on Friday.

Mr. Obama also spoke more than he usually does about his upbringing, and the fact that his father abandoned him.

He remembers meeting his father briefly only once, when he was 10 years old.

"I was raised by a heroic single mom, wonderful grandparents -- made incredible sacrifices for me," he told the graduates. "And I know there are moms and grandparents here today who did the same thing for all of you. But I sure wish I had had a father who was not only present, but involved. Didn’t know my dad."

The president said his experience impressed on him the need to be a good father and husband, and that his efforts at home are more important to him than his achievements as president

"Everything else is unfulfilled if we fail at family, if we fail at that responsibility," he said. "I know that when I am on my deathbed someday, I will not be thinking about any particular legislation I passed; I will not be thinking about a policy I promoted; I will not be thinking about the speech I gave, I will not be thinking the Nobel Prize I received. I will be thinking about that walk I took with my daughters. I'll be thinking about a lazy afternoon with my wife. I'll be thinking about sitting around the dinner table and seeing them happy and healthy and knowing that they were loved. And I'll be thinking about whether I did right by all of them."

The president combined his visit to Morehouse Sunday with a fundraiser in Georgia for Democratic candidates for the U.S. Senate.

Source: The Washington Times, LLC.

Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/may/19/obama-black-graduates-dont-use-racism-

Say NO to Walmart

Just say NO to Walmart

I purchased an item from Walmart online, which qualified me to take their customer survey. I always like to see if and how they ask for race and/or ethnicity data. Part of being an advocate is to let companies know if they are excluding multiracial people in their data.

Was I surprised! Not only did they still adhere to “Check only one,” but they used outdated and offensive terminology like “Oriental” and “Eskimo”! I sent a detailed email to their ethnics department—that was the only option—and asked them to revisit their survey questionnaires.

We went back and forth a few times, but the bottom line is this:

WALMART IS REFUSING TO ALLOW PEOPLE TO CHECK MORE THAN ONE RACE AND THEY ARE REFUSING TO UPDATE THEIR SURVEY QUESTIONS.

Think about it the next time you shop at Walmart and give them your hard-earned dollars. 

Soledad and White People

Soledad O'Brien: 'OK, white person, this is a conversation you clearly are uncomfortable with'

Soledad O'Brien, recently yanked from her morning show "Starting Point" on CNN, plans to continue her focus on racial issues and is charging that whites are afraid of dealing with the nation's black-white division.

O'Brien, just named a distinguished visiting fellow at Harvard's Graduate School of Education, told the school's Institute of Politics that she's often confronted by whites who want to take issue with her documentaries on race in America.

"People would sometimes, when I give speeches, stand up and say, 'You know, I think your black America documentaries (are) divisive. I think like, you know, listen, we shouldn't think of ourselves as African-American. We're Americans, and everybody should stop separating themselves out,'" she said in a new video from the institute.

She continued: "First of all, it's only white people who ever said that — 'if we could just see beyond race. If only people didn't see race, it would be such a better place, and you are responsible for bringing up these icky race issues, Soledad, you should just let sleeping dogs lie.'"

O'Brien added: "I was like, again, 'OK, white person, this is a conversation you clearly are uncomfortable with, and I have no problem seeing race, and I think we should talk about race."

Source: Paul Bedard Washington Secrets The Washington Examiner

Email Author Newsletter Signup @SecretsBedard Paul on FB

"Owning" Darker Skin

'Owning' a Darker Skin Can Positively Impact Racial Bias, Study Finds

May 15, 2013 — Scientists from Royal Holloway University have found that when white Caucasians are under the illusion that they have a dark skin, their racial bias changes in a positive way.

In the study that was funded by the European Research Council and published today in Cognition, the team used the tried and tested Rubber Hand Illusion, where participants are asked to look at a fake hand being touched, while at the same time, the experimenter touches the participants' own hand which is hidden out of view.

The combination of seeing the touch on the rubber hand and feeing touch on your hand, creates the illusion that the fake hand is now part of your body and has replaced your own hand.

The team was keen to take this method one step further by testing whether people can experience a hand of a different skin colour and whether this would change possible racial biases.

Using Caucasian participants, the scientists tested their implicit attitudes towards people with dark skin before using a dark-skinned rubber hand to make them feel as if this was their own hand. They then tested their racial attitudes again after the experiment.

The results found that the more intense the participants' illusion of owning the dark-skinned rubber hand, the more positive their racial attitudes became.

"This study has important implications for changing and reducing negative racial attitudes," said researcher Lara Maister from the Department of Psychology at Royal Holloway. "It comes down to a perceived similarity between white and dark skin. The illusion creates an overlap, which in turn helps to reduce negative attitudes because participants see less difference between themselves and those with dark skin."

Dr Manos Tsakiris, who led the research, said: "Often formed at an early age, negative racial attitudes are thought to remain relatively stable throughout adulthood. Our results show that we can positively alter them by understanding how the brain is processing sensory information from our bodies and that of others. It will be interesting to replicate the effect with different social groups and see if we can generalise these findings outside of a laboratory setting."

Story Source: Science News .The above story is reprinted from materials provided byUniversity of Royal Holloway London, via AlphaGalileo.

Study on Race and Cable News Shows

Study Finds People Of Color Nearly Invisible On Evening Cable News

Piers Morgan Live guest lineup was 91 percent white. (Piers Morgan Live studio.)

by Jorge Rivas, Tuesday, May 14 2013, 2:08 PM EST

A new analysis released yesterday by the media monitoring group Media Matters found that evening cable news guests are overwhelmingly white and male. According to the report, titled “Diversity on Evening Cable News in 13 Charts,” women and other people of color are underrepresented as guests on evening cable news programs at MSNBC, CNN and Fox News.

Media Matters examined the guests of thirteen evening cable news shows on CNN, MSNBC and Fox News during the month of April 2013. During that time period, only 33% of MSNBC guests, 29% Fox News guests and 24% CNN guests were female. Latinos fared much worse. Only 3% of Fox News guests and 2% of CNN and MSNBC guests were Latino.

An excerpt of some of the findings are below:

White Guests Were Hosted Most Often On Cable News. Fox News had the largest proportion of white guests — 83 percent. African-Americans were the largest non-white group on all networks, representing 19 percent, 10 percent, and 5 percent of guests on MSNBC, Fox, and CNN, respectively.

The Rachel Maddow Show Was Least Ethnically Diverse. Although The Rachel Maddow Show hosted fewer guests than other shows on MSNBC, those who were invited were most likely to be white. Out of 65 total guests, only 7 were non-white.

All In With Chris Hayes Was The Most Diverse Show In Evening Cable News. All In had both the largest proportion of women and the largest proportion of non-white guests — both 41 percent. All In also had the lowest proportion of white men — again 41 percent. Hayes’ show was the only evening cable news program to obtain such diversity.

Piers Morgan Live Guest Lineup Was 91 Percent White. CNN’s most ethnically diverse show was Outfront, which still hosted white guests 71 percent of the time. Similar to The Situation Room, the higher proportion of non-white guests on Outfront can be attributed in part to a couple of regular commentators: CNN correspondents Christiane Amanpour and Fareed Zakaria on The Situation Room and conservative political commentator Reihan Salam and political comedian Dean Obeidallah on Outfront.

White Men Were Vastly Overrepresented On Cable News. While white men enjoyed representation on cable that was nearly double that of their representation in the U.S. population, white women, who represent 32 percent of the population, were only 21 percent of guests on cable. Non-white women fared even worse. While they make up 19 percent of the population, they were only 8 percent of all guests on cable. Non-white men were also underrepresented; only 13 percent of guests on cable were non-white men while they make up 18 percent of the population.

The president of the National Hispanic Media Coalition released a statement on how he believes these findings may have real real world consequences.

“At a time when Latinos are over 16% of the country, a growing bloc of the electorate, and with over $1 trillion per year of buying power, it is unimaginable that we be excluded from cable news at such rates. This has a real affect on our community - the way we are perceived is how we are treated, and when our experts are absent from these programs it gives the perception that Latinos are not making meaningful contributions to this country, which couldn’t be further from the truth,” said NHMC president Alex Nogales in a statement sent to Colorlines.com.
Source: Colorlines.com

A Growing Multiracial Nation--REALLY

There are so many things wrong with this story that it's hard to know where to start. They spotlight a couple with children who are black and Asian, but their "expert," Dawkins,  points out that, for better or for worse, we only have the model of the black-white dynamic to work with.  Huh? 

The writer seems to be very confused about terminology like multiracial, biracial, interracial, or the Census favorite "More than one Box." 

The Beyonce example is ridiculous and needs proof instead of publicity. She does not represent the multiracial community, and certainly not the entire black community has the same opinion. 

NPR used to do more balanced, credible reporting on this issue. -Perhaps budget cuts have produced less accurate reporting. What a shame. -Susan Graham 

Checking More Than One Box: A Growing Multiracial Nation

Larry Bright holds his 3-year-old son's hand while the boy steps through a leafy playground in Silver Spring, Md., and practices counting his numbers in English.

At the top of the slide, the boy begins counting in his other language: Vietnamese.

Bright, the boy's father, is African-American; his mother, Thien Kim Lam, is Vietnamese. The couple has two children.

"They are a perfect mix between the two of us," Lam tells Arun Rath, host of weekends on All Things Considered.

(Thien-Kim Lam (left) and Larry Bright (right) with their 3-year-old son and 7-year-old daughter, are a multiracial family. They represent a growing segment of American families that are inter-racial and whose children identify as both races.

Courtesy of Thien-Kim Lam)

Bright and Lam's son and 7-year-old daughter are multiracial, just two of thousands born in what's been called a multiracial baby boom. Today, 15 percent of marriages are interracial and inter-ethnic.

Six years ago, her firstborn was just a year old, and Lam was adjusting to life as a mother.

"I didn't have any friends with children, and I wanted to go out and meet other moms," she says.

So she took her daughter to Ellsworth Park in downtown Silver Spring, but everyone there — mothers and nannies alike — thought Lam was her daughter's nanny. The other mothers wouldn't talk to her, and the nannies questioned her techniques.

The nannies would ask Lam how the family felt about her speaking to the kids in Vietnamese and if they "hired her to do that."
It was a profound moment for Lam, and it inspired her to start a blog called I'm Not The Nanny. She was shocked by how many people experienced what she had, but she also thought it was a problem just the parents were having. That came into sharp relief when her daughter turned 2. She threw a tantrum about wanting to look like her mother, having light skin and straight hair.

"I froze because I thought, 'What did I do wrong? I never pointed any of these things out,'" Lam says. "So that was a big lesson for me; you can't not talk about race."

Lam and her husband both grew up in Louisiana, where society asked them to choose between white and black. But going forward, it seems their two children will have more choices.

"I think they'll go as multiracial; I'm trying to set a balance," Lam says. "Teaching them their Vietnamese culture, but then I also reiterate that they're American. That's what makes them American; that they have this great mix of cultures."

That mix of cultures is uniquely American, and it's hard to ignore the growing trend that Lam and her family are a part of.

Mainstream Multiracial
President Obama is biracial, and in media, multiracials are everywhere. More than ever, they're touting their mixed heritage.
Comedians Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele are biracial, half-black and half-white. They made their names playing black characters on MADtv. But last year, they premiered their own show, where they take on multiracial issues with glee.

But taking on such issues doesn't always go smoothly, as music diva Beyonce discovered in a commercial for L'Oreal. In it, she declared the secret to her skin was a "mosaic of all the faces before it." The screen flashed the phrases: "African-American. Native American. French."

The backlash was immediate. The singer was criticized for abandoning her black identity. But the multiracial community embraced her.

It's not just that there are more multiracial and biracial people. The government is now counting the group differently. For the first time in modern history, the 2000 Census allowed us to check off more than one box for race.

The last Census showed 9 million people, about 3 percent of the population, reporting more than one race. That's an increase of one-third from the decade before.

"The youngest age group, kids under 5 [years old], 7 percent are identified as having more than one race group," says Jeffrey Passel, a senior demographer at the Pew Hispanic Center. "If we look at the elderly, over 65, it's only 1 percent."

That means more people are choosing spouses outside their own race. The change, Passel says, comes from evolving attitudes. Over the past few decades, he says more people have simply come to view intermarriage as no big deal.

"More than two-thirds of people in our surveys, when asked how they'd feel about someone in their own family marrying someone of a different background, said they'd be fine with it," he says.
Ask young people — those under 40 — and the number rises to more than 80 percent.

Racial identity, however, is a little more complicated than just checking a box. Passel points to research that looked at kids with one black and one white parent.

When asked at home about their racial identification, Passel says most children tended to say they were biracial or white and black. When asked at school, a much higher proportion identified as black.
"[This suggests] that their peers or their teachers or their school identified them one way and at home they identified differently," Passel says.

Evolving Perspectives
Multiracial people identifying as just one race is part of a long trend. University of Southern California professor Marcia Alesan Dawkins' father was one such man: part black and part white.

"He has lived his life as an African-American man. He lived through segregation, he lived through civil rights," Dawkins says. "And though he acknowledges these other aspects of his identity, he sees the world from the perspective of a black man. That's how he chooses to identify."

But just one generation makes all the difference for Dawkins herself, who claims black, white and Latino heritage. Dawkins and her sister see the world a little differently, she says.

"I don't think it's better or worse, but I think it's a credit to the progress in both ways that people can choose to identify just as one, or choose to identify as two or more," Dawkins says.

Despite the trend, Dawkins says it is important to remember that it is still less than 3 percent of the population that indentifies as multiracial. The overwhelming majority of Americans identify as having one race only.

"That's not a bad thing, but we have to be really careful how we read and interpret and spin these census results," she says.

Dawkins also says multiracials need to take some responsibility and look at how their entrance into the conversation might "disrupt — for better and for worse — resources and communities that have worked really hard to be organized."

It's difficult to talk about multiracials as a group, because the issues each individual faces is different. Dawkins points out that, for better or for worse, we only have the model of the black-white dynamic to work with. To advance the discussion, we may need not just new categories, but perhaps a new way to talk about race.
Source: National Public Radio